Heritage Garden Christmas Tree

The Heritage Garden Christmas tree fully trimmed.  Steven Smith Landscape installed and maintains the park in the City of Escondido, at the corner of Grand and Juniper. Photo credit: Debra Moore

 Merry Christmas to All!

Christmas Tree Lane 2013

We attended (Thank you Steve!) the Annual Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego's Christmas Tree Lane event held at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido.  The event  raised over $72,000 for the BGCGSD, and featured 10 designer decorated holiday trees, a boutique, luncheon and fashion show.  The theme for the afternoon was "Vintage Glam Wonderland."  Guests were able to get some of their holiday shopping done, while having a great time in one glorious afternoon of fun, food, fashion and champagne. 

Lucky Gigi won one of the gorgeous wreaths that were raffled off!

Heritage Garden

Another perspective from today, of Heritage Garden Park in the City of Escondido, at the corner of Grand and Juniper. Steven Smith Landscape, Inc. installed and currently maintains this park.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for photos at the park of the completed Christmas tree with all the trimmings!

Heritage Garden Christmas Tree

 Today we stopped by Heritage Garden,  the park Steven Smith Landscape installed and maintains in the City of Escondido, at the corner of Grand and Juniper.  This park is an ongoing collaborative project and the beautiful Deodar tree was donated by Evergreen Nursery and use of the lift courtesy of G. Weir .  Rosemary Duff Florist was on hand to get the trimming underway!  We plan to stop back in a day or two to get photos of the completed tree in all its splendor.

Our own  Debra Moore and Gigi Golden-Smith with some of the shiny "tree bling"

Consider the Cyclamen for Your Holiday Plantings

The holidays are right around the corner and we get a lot of requests for winter color changes for entryways and beds that speak to the season. Poinsettias are one logical choice, but a beautiful alternative is the Cyclamen.  A mix of the red and white varieties are perfect for this purpose.

Cyclamen, a tuberous perennial,  with orchid-like flowers, is a genus of the Primulaceae or primrose family.  They have large heart-shaped leaves and are available in many colors and bi-color combinations.
Cyclamen are surprisingly hardy as outdoor winter plants.

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Shades of blue

I wandered out to our loading dock on this beautiful crisp fall day, to see our latest plant deliveries and encountered a sea of blue Plumbago flowers.

 Plumbago is an evergreen shrub, flowering in various shades of blue. Plumbago auriculata, also known commonly as Blue Plumbago, Cape Plumbago, Cape Leadwort and Skyflower, is the most commonly seen.
A native to South Africa, Plumbago is a popular ornamental, and is considered moderately drought tolerant. Typically it is used in borders, foundation plantings, and for color massed in beds.


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Spring

My favorite benchmark that spring is afoot is the coming out of my Paperwhites,. aka my Tazetta Narcissus Paperwhite Daffodils.

My lovely, fragrant bulbs return every year at Easter time.  In 1999, I inherited 300 Paperwhite bulbs from a friend and planted them in my yard.  It sounds like a lot, doesn't it? It really wasn't that difficult. Not knowing a thing about bulbs, I googled Martha Stewart and read all about bulbs and how to plant them.  There is a special bulb planting tool you can buy, but i planted all 300 with a simple spade in one afternoon.

It was a labor of love. One that has been rewarded many times over as they multiply each year they come back up. It's been 14 years and now they fill up my yard!
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They look so pretty with some of my other misfit plants.
Here they are with some Begonia I rescued from a neighbor.







I wish i could make this blog a "scratch and sniff" because they smell so fresh and beautiful.  For just a few short weeks, my garden smells like heaven, especially at night. And then, they're gone. Until next spring, when they'll bring more buddies.